Creative musings in bright colors

Posts tagged ‘bubbles’

See, no more magnets! Instead you get a multichrome topper over not black? I don’t know what I was thinking but here we go!

I wanted to try Aurora over a dark teal base. And then I decided that bubbles were appropriate? My nails under this are a DISASTER. I painted these just after I finished moving apartments, and my ring finger tore to the quick (and is heavily patched), AND my middle finger somehow shattered, but I was able to file the surface to somewhat smooth and apply 4 coats of base coat in a desperate attempt to hold it together, and my pointer folded down the middle. I won’t even mention my poor short thumb nail…I lost both corners on subsequent days! Suffice to say my nails are a disaster and this is one of the last right-handed manis you guys will be seeing for a while!

Despite all the devastation, I think the mani looks surprisingly cool? The teal base blunted a bit of the color shift in Aurora but you can still see both the green and certainly the purple shift. Also, I like this stamp!

I don’t know what I was thinking with this. I wanted to use my pale pink swatch test nails to make something….and it got out of hand. This would actually have been a really cool mani if I just stuck to one of the paler pinks as my base! As it is with the weird background dotted gradient…nope.

So I started by making a dotted gradient from lightest to darkest color, interspersing the creme polishes with the shimmers. That looked ok. Then I stamped with a neon teal, which still looked ok. Then I added black. I just wish my nail tips weren’t so much darker! I love the pink/teal/black idea. Oh well.

In other news, this is my first Whats Up Nails stamping plate, and I love it!! It is wonderfully etched and I wish I had done this mani better service. It is one of the only plates I own where I can really see myself using every single damn image. I am impressed! Despite how awful these look, you will be seeing a lot more of these designs. Anyway, happy Friday, and I promise next weeks manis are better!

This is a pretty simple mani, but I am still quite proud of it! I am pleased, not because it is in and of itself impressive, but because I painted it while on my honeymoon!

I needed something quick, easy, and somewhat tropical. I thought these looked like bubbles, so I went with it! I also had only really brought teal and blue polishes with me, so I had a rather limited set of options :-p

All said and done I think I painted my nails twice while on my honeymoon? The other design is even simpler! But never let it be said that my nails chip.

That’s all for today! I just felt like I should throw in some non-stamped manis every now and then. I’ve been so busy recently that I feel like all I have time for is stamps, and gradients under them if I’m lucky!

Sometimes, I go into a bit of art with no inspiration and magic happens. This is magic (as opposed to tomorrows where I went in with no inspiration and …nothing happened). I wanted to create a post to show the differences between 4 Mentality polishes: the pinkish red matte Beautiful, the deep red matte Allure, and the gold + red glitters Euphoria and Rapture. What came out was this!

I kinda thought about doing vertical lines…but the scales just kinda dynamically popped out. I had grabbed some color-coordinated holos by Nabi and just started doodling. Ta-da!

What you can see when there ISN’T art over the polishes, is the differences between them. My pinky has Allure while my pointer has Beautiful. Allure is more of a “true” matte and is a much darker color, while Beautiful has a bit of a shine to it and appears almost matte-metallic. Both covered perfectly in two coats.

Rapture and Euphoria are a bit harder to tell apart. My ring finger has Euphoria while my middle finger has rapture. Euphoria looks more like a silver + gold combo with larger gold flakies, while Rapture is silver + gold + coppery red with reddish flakies. Both are stunning in the sunlight, and cover completely in two coats. Which one you prefer is up to you! I think Euphoria is a bit brighter, but Rapture is a bit more elegant.

The other fun thing here is that my boyfriend just got me a light box!!!!! So half of these photos come from my lightbox while the other half come from my normal set-up (aka taking photos in my bathroom). What do you think? Do I need a brighter way of lighting up the box or is it pretty good as is?

So much pretty! I keep trying to play with these polishes more but I really should vary my usage more 😀

Please don’t ask about the title of this post. I kept staring at my nails and thinking “they look like bubbles in green jelly!” so here you go. For Day #4, Green!

This design was super-simple, and was inspired by a black/white/grey bit of art by The Polish Well. Honestly, I think this art would look much better on shorter nails (like hers) rather than my current talons! Oh well.

I decided to give I’ve Never Seen A Beautiful Witch by Different Dimension another try (especially after how easy Cranfairy was to work with). I was, yet again, disappointed. As pretty as this polish looks in the bottle it just does NOT work well on the nail.

I went ahead and complimented the pale pink in the polish with a light pink holo (Digital by Milani) and some butterfly stamps from various Bundle Monster plates (ask if you want to know which ones) with French White Creme – Wet n’ Wild and Raspberry Ice – Petites Color Fever.

This mani just makes me sad. It is all thick and lumpy…and then the stamping is ok but it doesn’t really pop because there are too many lumps!

Right. Happy Friday. Starting on Monday I will have some REAL nail art…and if I get my act together (no promises) I might have something on Sunday. With my face in it. Strange, eh?

This post fill many requirements. It is my “nautical” post for the OMD2 Challenge, my “summer nail art” entry for the Nail Polish Canada summer contest (which you guys should TOTALLY GO VOTE FOR) and the tutorial for it will (hopefully) be published at Nail It! Magazine in the next week or so…once I write it up.

The interesting part of this mani is that it is a duplicate of one I did almost exactly a year ago. Only this time, I have longer nails. And slightly more time. That being said, I still love fish. And seahorses. And just summer underwater stuff in general. So if I had to re-do one mani, I think this wasn’t a bad one to choose!

While in Israel, I picked up 4 new polishes by an Israeli brand called WoW! One of them is on display today: is this beautiful glitter. Large and small white hexes with large teal hexes. It just looked like spring! So I had to use it with other spring colors 🙂 and “reinvent” a french manicure for the Lacquer Legion reinvention theme.

The glitter is shown (in two coats, no fishing required) over purple and blue on my ring finger and thumb. My other three nails I just had fun with! Yay bubbles!

Unfortunately, my nails were so destroyed after the gel fiasco that none of the polish is particularly smooth. Live and learn. I still like this manicure.

Colors

Pink: NYC – Prospect Park Bloom

Purple: Essie – Full Steam Ahead

Blue: Zoya – Wednesday

Glitter: WoW – 317

This was quick, easy, and pretty! I might have to try again with different colors when my nails regain life :-p

I love blue. I have not been particularly tempted buy any further blue textured polishes (I already owned one), just because none of them spoke to me. I picked up Sleigh Ride on a whim, and I am really glad I did.

This polish is possibly my favorite textured polish, bar none. It is a beautiful vibrant true blue, with silver and light blue glitter. It is textured but does not catch on anything, and took only one coat to be opaque. I added two coats, and the color deepened a bit. It dried remarkably fast, and I cannot stop staring at my nails. This is the perfect blue.

I wanted to add snowflakes for my art, but seeing as how it is still 70 degrees out, I figured ’tis not the season yet. Instead, I opted for water! The blue and glitter reminded me of sunlight passing through the surface of water, so I decided to do a shallow ocean design.

So, here we have bubbles and a wave on my accent nail and thumb. I added some accents in another Julie G textured polish, and you can see that it looks almost grey/silver next to Sleigh Ride! Crazy.

Colors

Blue textured: Julie G – Sleigh Ride

Light blue textured: Julie G – Blueberry Fizz

Blue: Zoya – Yummy

Light blue: Sally Hansen – Breezy Blue

White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White

This mani is so much fun! And this polish is incredible. If you want Sleigh Ride and the rest of the collection, head to Jesse’s Girl right now for a pre-sale of the whole set! Julie G textured polishes can be found at Rite Aid for $4.

A few weeks ago, I was asked to do a review for OMGNailStrips.com, of a nail strip of my choosing. They have many to choose from, but I settled on one with water droplets!

I have to say, I am impressed with these! Application took <10 minutes, and they lasted without chipping for 3 days (the 4th day I went to hershey park, so that isn’t fair), and they were super easy to use! I have never used nail polish strips or stickers in the past. I am usually a polish purist…but I decided to try these.

Application was easy. They have a really clear video that I simply followed. I had to trim two of the strips to fit my (apparently very narrow) nails. The smallest strip fit my ring finger, so I trimmed one for my pinky and one for my pointer. I placed and replaced the one on my ring finger 4 times (yes, four) before deciding that I liked the placement. IT WAS STILL STICKY! I was amazed.

The key seemed to be placing at the cuticle line, and pressing straight up the finger. Only then (and when it is positioned right, which took between 1 and 4 tries per nail) press out towards the lateral sides of your nail. Don’t try to stretch the sticker, just press it down. Even on my super-curvy and funny shaped pointer finger, there were no wrinkles with this polish strip!

I have gotten more comments on my nails these past few days than I have in a while. Everyone wants to know if they are stickers and where I got them! I am really pleased with how well these worked, and am debating buying a few others (or some of their nail foils…I’ve never tried foils either, but now I trust this company!).

Steps:

Find the polish strip that fits your nail best, or trim one to fit (seriously, do this before you remove the sticker backing. I had to clip one with a nail clipper when I realized it was too big after placing it on my nail, and it looked funny!). Cut that strip from the others.

Peel off the shiny plastic coating on the front of the sticker

Remove the sticker from the white back

Place sticker on clean nail surface (no base coat needed, but make sure your cuticles are out of the way!)

Press down on sticker from the base of your nail to the tip, then out towards the lateral edge of your nails. If you need to reposition the strips, do them before pressing all the way down! (Although, I did press all the way down and remove just to see what would happen. The sticker deformed a tiny bit as it stretched, but was fine!) Once you like the position, press down hard!

File away the excess strip using a nail file horizontal to your nail. I tried to explain it with this photo, but really watch their video. The woman does a grew job explaining! (I have been using a cheap $1 file from Rite Aid for the last 6 months, and even I was able to file away the excess. So it isn’t hard)

Dip a q-tip in polish remover, and gently wipe down the strip. This makes it ‘melt’ a little, and stick better to the nail. Wait for the strip to re-harden (5 minutes?) and add top coat.

Admire your new and quick manicure!

Included in the package are 14 nail strips (7 for each hand, so the sizes work), and that’s it! The package is not sealed (there is a small breathing hole) and so you know off the bat that you don’t have to worry about the strips drying out. I waited almost two weeks between opening them to admire them, and actually using them. They worked great!

…itty bitty living space. Ok, so this polish has nothing to do with the Genie from Aladdin, but I couldn’t help myself! Today, I have for you my #1 lemming, Cosmic Forces by Emily de Molly.

This is a BEAUTIFUL deep purple jelly with large and small circular glitter (the large ones are holographic too), and small and tiny hexagonal glitter. Basically, lots of glitter. And sparkle. And purple.

Shown here are two thickish coats of Cosmic Forces. Two thin coats would have kept more of the jelly appearance, but for my first try I wanted to make sure it covered. The polish goes on very easily, except for the large circle glitters. Although there are many in the bottle, they need to be fished for and placed!

When I was done, I added some cosmic surroundings on my accent nail…and turned one of the circle glitters into a planet with rings, and some of the smaller glitters into comets.

Unfortunately, even with two coats of top coat, this does not sit smoothly. I think I need to acquire myself some gelaous top coat! I will certainly be using more of this polish in the future though…it is absolutely stunning. So many sparkles!

Colors

Purple: Emily de Molly – Cosmic Forces

Silver: A England – Excalibur

What do you think? As stunned as I am? Thank you Llarowe for making this polish possible! (Emily de Molly is based in Australia, I got this polish from llarowe).

I wanted to make a gradient out of the blue/greens in the Julie G frosted gumdrop collection, but I couldn’t figure out what to do! I settles on making fish scales and funny sized bubbles

The gradient came out really pretty, however, the fish scales didn’t! The blue and green are too similar in color, and the pink/purple is too different.

I added white scale outlines to try and highlight certain scales, but I don’t actually think it looked that great.

I did really like the different sized bubbles on my gradient fingers though! The boyfriend said they looked like Gallifreyan writing, which I might be trying in the future! (nerd alert: Gallifrey is the planet that The Doctor is from in Doctor Who).

Colors

Green: Julie G – Rock Candy

Blue: Julie G – Blueberry Fizz

Purple: Julie G – Crushed Candy

White: Sinful Colors – Snow me White

I still have some other fun ideas lined up for this collection! Oh texutred polishes, how fun you are!